indieWIRE's Best of Cannes Winners and RT's Top 10 Films

As part of my wrap-up on the Cannes Film Festival, I wanted to feature two great articles found around the web today. The first is indieWIRE's Best of Cannes, a list of the best films, best actors, best directors, and worst films from this year, as ranked by critics and bloggers. A group of sixteen people (including me) were polled by indieWIRE and they've comprised the three films in each category with the most votes. The big winner is Un Prophete, which is still my favorite film of the fest. Additionally, Rotten Tomatoes has a great feature looking at the 10 Must-See Movies coming out of the fest. Both lists have some great picks.

If you weren't in attendance at Cannes, it's hard to really care about some of the films that showed there, especially when most of you know nothing about them. Which is why I'm hoping these two lists can help give a few of you some direction and insight into what the best films from the fest are and which films you should be keeping your eye on. There's a lot of foreign features that won't ever come to America, but there are also a lot of great films just waiting to be discovered by American audiences, so read on for the details!

As for the Rotten Tomatoes feature, they've chosen 10 films from Cannes that are a bit more mainstream than a few of those on indieWIRE's lists. Overall, it's pretty much the same deal - a good list of films you should keep your eye on if you have an appreciation for independent or foreign cinema. Here they are:

I suggest heading over to indieWIRE and/or Rotten Tomatoes to get a good look at both features in closer detail. My three picks for best film were actually A Prophet, Adrift, and Inglourious Basterds, though I might add Fish Tank to that, as well. As for actors, I chose Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds, Vincent Cassel from Adrift, and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing from a French film called Father of My Children, but I had forgotten about Tahar Rahim in A Prophet, who deserves that #1 spot anyway. If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to watch my final Cannes video blog with guest Eric Lavallee from IONCinema.com here.

hows antichrist #2 on the best and worst, just me or does that not make much sense

http://www.lifeasfiction.com Rahat

@#1: Makes perfect sense. You either hate it or love it. It's been the talk of the festival because of its polarizing nature.

Angelo

Shouldn't the RT list be the other way around. Antichrist as #1 .

http://movies.iconocritic.com/ peloquin

I was wondering about that too tw, care to shed some light Mr. Billington?

Scott McHenry

I really want to see I Love You Phillip Morris

Angelo

#2 already explained it. That list consists of points given to a film, so 5 critics could give antichrist full points for best films, yet 5 others would put it on their #1 spot on worst films, hence it being on both lists.

http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#1 & #4 - That's because this was organized by how many "mentions" each movie got. So out of the 16 people who submitted votes, 5 thought it was the best, 4 thought it was the worst. It got ranked on both because they were just tallying up how many times it was mentioned. Read more here.

http://www.lifeasfiction.com Rahat

Frankly, I'm surprised Worst Film went to Mendoza's Kinatay, yet he won Best Director?

Tony

ok, dumb question... how can Antichrist be both best & worst film?

Tony

nm... I didn't pay attention... sorry 'bout that....

Al

Alex, did you happen to catch Tetro?

http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

I did see Tetro on the first day... And it deserves to keep its place at #4 on the worst films list, unfortunately.

http://www.belolats.com Standing On The Edge

I am happy that Filipino director Brillante Mendoza came out as the victor for this years Canne's Best Director. It's a breath of fresh air seeing new directors being recognized for this big event.

JD

I'm interested in hearing more about this Safdie movie. Frownland was my favorite movie of the past few years so i'm excited to see how Bronstein fares as an actor. Does he bring much of his own aesthetic to the work?